traditional marketing Tag

AdWords is Google’s renowned online advertising service which allows you to develop and grow your business by reaching new customers. It helps you market your products and services in Google’s search engine and its affiliated sites. You control your ad in terms of where it appears, what kind of audience views it, what your budget should be; and these are only some of the many aspects you can control. It even allows you to measure the impact your ad has on viewers and potential customers!

Google AdWords assists your marketing by the use of placed texts which appear when individuals enter keywords. Your ad appears in the form of a “sponsored link” which utilises a PPC (Pay Per Click) system. This means that you only pay for your ad when a potential client clicks on it, which is efficient in saving costs and cutting down unwanted inbound traffic.

The more you choose to pay for your ad, the higher it appears on Google’s search engine, which is important because 87% of people don’t bother looking past the first page of search results to find what they’re looking for. If they don’t see your website on the first page, that customer automatically becomes your competitor’s customer.

We already know the pros and cons of both traditional and online marketing. Let’s move a step further, focusing on online marketing specifically, which is also known as inbound marketing.

Many buyers all over the world use the internet for buying products, using sites such as Amazon.com and eBay. Even if choosing to purchase merchandise from “real world” stores, they tend to refer to the product online for reviews specifications to see if it meets their needs. Even though the inbound marketing allows you to target a wider range of audience world-wide, you would be surprised to learn how internet marketing and traditional marketing are similar in the sense that they are the exact opposite of each other. You can consider it be a “reflection” or “mirror image” of traditional marketing.

Flip the Switch and Relax

When marketing over the internet, the process is initiated when an individual enters a keyword in a search engine, after which sellers are directed by the search engine to potential buyers which appear in the order of relative importance. This tends to become one of the major issues for most traditional companies or sellers:

The buyer approaches the seller (whereas in traditional marketing it is the seller that approaches the buyer with the goal in mind of making sales and generating revenue.) This becomes a mirror reflection of traditional marketing automatically. Sellers don’t need to find buyers – buyers need to find sellers. Which, in essence, means that the seller needs to make efforts online to make sure their products pop up before their competitors’ (which is most efficiently done via Search Engine Optimisation, among other techniques). However, this requires less effort on the part of the seller in terms of “active marketing” and could prove to be more beneficial in the end.

Traditional marketing, also known as untargeted marketing, involves marketing strategies which, instead of targeting a specific population, targets everyone in your state or city. One of the biggest disadvantages of traditional marketing is high investment but minimal results. These strategies generally include marketing via radio, television, print media, using marketing vehicles, and billboards or hoardings. Traditional marketing techniques are generally used by companies who are already well-established and recognized but must continue marketing for the sake of maintaining their market share. This offers little chance for actual growth.

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

As we mentioned, traditional marketing generally works best for companies and organizations that have already acquired recognition in their market. Continuing to market using traditional methods helps reinforce the company’s image in terms of services offered, new promotions, and maintaining customer loyalty. Basically, their purpose is to make sure people don’t forget that they exist, so they need to make appearances in the market every now and then.

Drawbacks of Traditional Marketing

Not everyone who comes across the product/ad will be interested in what you offer

Results are difficult to quantify

High cost

Decreased chance of delivering a memorable message to potential customers in case they want to purchase your product immediately.

Questions to ask yourself when undertaking traditional marketing

If you opt to use traditional marketing methods to promote your product or company, here are some questions you may want to consider beforehand:

Will your ad be heard and seen by your target audience or will it be mentally blocked out?

Will your ad and its content leave a positive or negative impression on your company?

Is your ad powerful enough to draw a response from the masses?

Will your ad be memorable and enticing enough for people to respond to it later?

Does your competitor offer better services or values?

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is considered a more non-traditional, yet effective marketing strategy as it’s considered to be “targeted” marketing for the specific audience you wish to captivate. It tends to cost less compared to traditional marketing, as internet marketing charges on a pay-per-click basis (you’re only charged for your advertisement when someone clicks on your banner on a web page). The main benefit of this, which ensures that you pay less, is that only individuals who will actually be interested in your product will be likely to click on your ad, whereas others who aren’t interested would simply overlook the ad, and there is no charge to you.